Sunflower Seed Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just incase it isn’t super obvious that I’m not actually talking in 3rd person – I managed to bribe my husband (with cookies of course) to write today’s post so I could work on other things. Enjoy!

And yet again, Sarah finds another one of my weaknesses. The cookies in these pictures are long gone at this point and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t the primary culprit. They’re so damn good. When Sarah was talking me through the recipe I was surprised when she told me the main ingredient is sunflower seed flour. First off, I’d never considered the idea of grinding up sunflower seeds to form a flour. Secondly, I had no idea just how amazing it’d be for making paleo chocolate chip cookies. You’ll see what I mean. OH, and that’s not the only thing you’ll notice with these cookies – there’s also a surprise that neither of us were expecting.

So Sarah made these, pictured them, I ate about 3 of them and that was that for the night. Pretty standard fare. I get up the next day, get something to drink, head over to the cookie tin and break a small piece off because I’m a sugar fiend. Anyway, as I break it off I notice the inside of the cookie is now bright green. What. It would’ve been alarming if it didn’t taste so good still.

After the initial confusion, Sarah did some googling and we realised that the Chlorophyll inside sunflower seeds reacts with the baking soda in the recipe over time to form a shade of green that’s more reminiscent of halloween candy than a chocolate chip cookie! It’s amazing. On the outside they look pretty normal, so we handed them out for friends and family to try. One of my Mum’s friends faces was a picture after she saw what she’d bitten into!

The good news? She wanted another one as soon as she’d finished. That’s the sort of feedback we like to see.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.

Flax egg

Do this next step if you are using flax eggs. Otherwise just skip on down to make the sunflower seeds

Make your flax eggs by mixing the 1 tablespoon ground flax with 3 tablespoons cold water in a large mixing bowl. Mix together and then place in the fridge to let rest while you make the sunflower seed flour.

Cookies

Place the sunflower seeds in a blender or food processor and pulse the seeds until you end up with a flour like texture. You may need to stop every so often to scape the sides of the blender/processor down.

Add the melted coconut oil, coconut sugar, vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl with the flax egg (or regular egg if that's what you're using) and stir until well combined.

Mix in the ground sunflower seeds, coconut flour, baking soda, and salt and whisk everything together until. You should end up with a crumbly but wet looking dough that easily sticks together.

Scoop out 1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll together to form little balls. Place the dough balls on a lined baking sheet leaving about 1 inch in between each cookie. Gently flatten the dough with your hand.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for at least 10 minutes before carefully removing and placing on a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

Notes

Store these cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Sunflower seeds contain chlorophyll (the chemical in plants that makes them green). When mixed with baking soda, heated, and cooled the acid reacts and turns green. You may notice a few green specks here and there just after baking, but the longer these cookies sat on the counter the more green they got. By day three the cookies looked completely normal on the outside but were a bright green/blue on the inside. They're still perfectly safe to eat - just might be a little confusing if you're not expecting it.

Thank you for this amazing recipe. I checked off all of the boxes for my dietary needs and was super simple to make. I did use chia meal instead of flax and it worked perfectly. Thank you for such a tasty recipe. Amazing!!

Thank you for this recipe – we have nut, gluten AND egg allergies and getting all three kiddos the same snacks can prove challenging. This sounds amazing – we LOVE sunflower seeds! Can’t wait to try these this weekend.

I just made these because the thought of using sunflower seed flour was so crazy to me I just had to try it out! I made a few modifications [ coconut shortening instead of coconut oil, date sugar and Lakanto sugar, no salt due to my sunflower seeds already having salt ]. I had just recently purchased two big bags on sale of Go Raw organic & sprouted sunflower seeds with salt.

I love them and I like that they’re an easy recipe. I flattened some and left some as rounded scoops to see what I like better. I like them flattened. They were a great consistency, the flavors really came through nicely and they’re soft and chewy which is my fave. I just wish I had some chocolate chips.

After so many failed attempts at low carb cookies, I think this is my go-to! Mine turned green almost immediately, maybe from my seeds being sprouted? Anyway, they’re really fun! They look “healthy”. My hubby likes them too!

That makes me so happy to hear! These are definitely one of my favourite recipes that I’ve shared so I’m always happy to hear when other people love them as much as I do! Who would have thought to use sunflower seeds?? Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought and how you made your cookies you own! I always find those helpful!

Hi Ellie! I’m afraid I don’t think I can be much help here – I’ve never tried making these without coconut flour so I don’t know how leaving it out would effect the overall cookie. As for the stevia I don’t really have any experience in baking with it so again I would be able to advise on what changes to make and I really wouldn’t want to steer you wrong. If you do try making these with those changes could you come back and let me know how it went? I’m sure that info would be really helpful for anyone else who was thinking of trying the change up a couple of things

These cookies are heavenly, thank you! I’m scoffing these moist lil’ morsels hot outta the oven as I type. I added 20 drops of liquid toffee stevia, because I’m a sweet tooth fiend, and chopped up about 30g-40g of Green & Black’s 85% dark chocolate, because it’s all I had on hand. Thanks a million for the rad recipe, they will become a staple in my low carb vegan-curious repertoire!

Haha I know what you mean! I’m pretty sure the only we reason we got to find out they were green is because I made a ton of batches to test the cookies and ended up with leftovers…not many though 😀 So glad you liked them! Thanks for coming back to let me know what you thought!

Since baking powder is made up of a mixture of baking soda, cream of tartar and cornstarch you’ll still probably end up with a little bit of green.

You could try reducing the amount of baking soda to 1/4 teaspoon – sometimes using less will prevent any greeness from happening. I also read in this post that you can sometimes eliminate the green by mixing 1 teaspoon lemon juice over the wet ingredients. Since it’s such a small amount I doubt it would change the taste of the cookies http://www.dailybitesblog.com/2013/10/03/crazy-food-questions-answered/

From my experience of blending up nuts/seeds into flours it doesn’t come out exactly right – I usually end up with a little more than what I need, but it’s pretty close so you should be able to get away with it. If you have a kitchen scale you could always measure out 140 grams of flour, if not I still think you’ll be fine! Hope that helps & I hope you enjoy the cookies as much as we do 🙂

Sarah, thanks for this wonderful recipe! I just made it for my chocolate chip cookie-loving daughter and husband — my daughter is allergic to tree nuts, and I’m trying to reduce their overall intake of grains and refined sugars. I followed everything in your recipe except that I omitted the salt. It was so yummy! I’m also looking forward to the color change — I can’t wait to see the look in their eyes… 🙂

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